How CAGVenture started their logo design journey

Summary

We are seeking a thoughtful and talented designer to refresh our company logo for a more contemporary look.

Company name

The Certif-A-Gift Company

What inspires you and how do you envision the design for your business?

This contest is different than most of the others posted on 99Designs. We are not a new company. We are not a high-tech company. We don’t believe in get-rich-quick schemes. We are a family business that tries hard to follow the golden rule by treating our vendors, customers and employees like family.

It’s important you know this before you start noodling and doodling on our logo. We’ve been in business for 54 years and, Lord willing, will be in business for another 54 years. So, in thinking about our logo, consider this as an opportunity to create a bit of history and the chance to have a portfolio piece you can refer to long into your retirement!

We sell to corporate buyers throughout the United States and Canada, most of whom are women under the age of 45.

What we sell:

Our product is very simple: We sell what’s known as plateau gift booklets which companies use as sales incentives, customer thank-you gifts, and in customer loyalty programs.

Yes, this is a real throwback to the 1950’s—physical, tangible booklets—all of which are 4/c printed, saddlestitched, 12-page product catalogs (approx. 11.5 in. x 9 in or 28.5 cm x 22 cm). Each booklet features a wide assortment of really nice products in a given price-range.

In case you want to know, here’s how it works for our customers:

Our buyer determines the gift level (we have gift levels starting at $25 and go all the way up to $5,000) and places an order with us. We mail the buyer the gift booklet matching the price level. The buyer presents the booklet to the recipient. The recipient selects their gift from the gift booklet or from our online catalog. We ship the gift right to the recipient.

Even with everything going online today, we continue to grow our business. Our customers tell us our gift booklets are still one of the coolest and easiest ways to say thank-you or award an employee with a nice gift, which the recipient chooses for themselves.

Our logo and the project to redesign it:

We are seeking a thoughtful and talented designer to refresh our company logo for a more contemporary look.

I’ve also included a scan of our current business card so you can see how we’ve used the logo in a unique way (redesigning our business card is NOT part of this project)

As you can see in the attached, our logo has two elements.

Element 1: Our brand name: Certif-A-Gift (script).

Element 2: The gift box + ribbon/bow surrounding our brand name.

We use our brand name with and without the gift box in our marketing materials today. The box seems to date us and given our business, it may even confuse our customers, thinking that we are in the gift-supply business. The ribbon and bow further contribute to this confusion. The script font and color (red), however, are less objectionable, but we are concerned that the particular script-font, itself, may need a little tweaking, too, to achieve a more contemporary feel. The color (red) has served us well, but we are open to consider other choices or variations. Our only real issue with red is that it can sometimes print as pink, especially when we screen it back on 2/c print jobs.

So, if we were to force a ranking, from most objectionable to least objectionable elements of our current logo it would be:
- The font surrounding the gift box (“the” and “company”)
- The gift box
- The ribbon
- The bow
- The script font
- The color (red)Output:
- Adobe Illustrator ai files in color and 1/c (black)
- .jpg, gif in various sizes (to be determined)
- Horizontal and vertical (stacked) formatsKeep in mind:

Please keep in mind that our logo must be easily reproducible in print (4/c, 2/c and 1/c). So if you have some wonderful idea that works great for the web, but will be a real problem to print (like a logo with complicated color gradients), please go back to the drawing board.

Bonus:

The winning designer will not only win the cash award, we will also send you a $50 award gift booklet for you to select your own gift.